The Saved E-Book

Liz Webb

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 463

Beschreibung

She thought his death would destroy her ... but his return was far worse. Nancy and Calder are moving from London to an isolated slate island, off the west coast of Scotland. But, for Nancy, the fresh start is undermined by the stark surroundings, mysterious locals and the discovery of Calder's dark past. Then one of Nancy's nightmares plays out in real life: Calder's boat upturned in the bay, his body adrift in the icy water. Miraculously, the doctors manage to bring him back to life, but Nancy doesn't recognize the man who has been snatched back from death's door. As secrets, lies and bodies begin to wash up on the island, Nancy must come to terms with the fact that sometimes the slate cannot be wiped clean.

Leseprobe

THE SAVED

LIZ WEBB

For all my brilliant writer friends.

Especially my writing group: Jo Pritchard, Katherine Tansley,

Marija Maher-Diffenthal & Sarah Lawton.

And my writing mentor, Sarah Clayton.

‘There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.’

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONEPIGRAPHNOTE ON THE LOCATIONCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENCHAPTER EIGHTEENCHAPTER NINETEENCHAPTER TWENTYCHAPTER TWENTY-ONECHAPTER TWENTY-TWOCHAPTER TWENTY-THREECHAPTER TWENTY-FOURCHAPTER TWENTY-FIVECHAPTER TWENTY-SIXCHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENCHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTCHAPTER TWENTY-NINECHAPTER THIRTYCHAPTER THIRTY-ONECHAPTER THIRTY-TWOCHAPTER THIRTY-THREECHAPTER THIRTY-FOURNOTE FROM THE AUTHORACKNOWLEDGEMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORCOPYRIGHT

NOTE ON THE LOCATION

There are 94 inhabited Scottish islands. I’ve made up a 95th island called ‘Langer’.

Any positive things about Langer are based on the wonderful Scottish slate islands of Seil, Luing and Easdale, ‘the islands that roofed the world’ with their slate industry. Any negative things about my island or its people are entirely fictional and based on my warped imagination. While inspired by reality, I’ve taken creative license with the landscapes, buildings, ferries, weather, whirlpools, religion and churches.

CHAPTER ONE

I lean forward on the icy ferry rail, as the white coils of mist slowly unravel ahead of us.

And finally … there it is. The island of Langer. Our new home.

All the other passengers on this little ferry have stayed in their cars, safe from the intense cold. Calder and I are the only idiots watching the approach from outside, clearly newcomers. Well, I am. Calder was born here, but left twenty-odd years ago. I look up at him, his long black hair flapping in the wind, his cheeks ruddy and his forehead scrunched, with little lines puckering at the corners of his eyes. Is that from the cold? Or from memories of his childhood here?

‘You OK?’ I call, pitching up over the wind.

He nods, not taking his eyes off the island.

I glance down and notice a fat seagull bobbing on the surging water below us. Aren’t its feet freezing in that cold sea? Yet it looks totally unperturbed, all puffed up and full of itself.

The A4 typed timetable on the quay noticeboard said that the journey to this slate island off the west coast of Scotland would take fourteen minutes. That sounded short, but it feels much longer in this bitter buffeting. How can it be this sunny and yet still so brutally cold? Our rental car is parked in the base of this little ferry, cleverly packed in with five other cars by the burly man in a tight brown jumper who waved us on. But we’ve come outside to the metal ramp on the side of the boat, at my insistence. I want to enjoy every moment of our approach, however glacial it is.

The fat seagull abruptly dives down, instantly invisible in the grey depths. I wait for it to resurface, but it’s nowhere to be seen. I keep on scanning the water, but it doesn’t come back up.

‘Where’s that bird?’

‘What bird?’ Calder asks distractedly.

‘A seagull. It was just there,’ I say, pointing. ‘I was looking right at it and it suddenly ducked under, and disappeared entirely.’

‘Oh, Nancy, it’ll be fine.’

‘But how long can it survive down there? That water must be freezing.’

He turns to face me and raises an eyebrow. ‘I sincerely doubt that some bird has decided to end it all just ’cos you were staring at it. Then again, you do have an impressive stare, sooo …’

‘Yeah, all right,’ I laugh. But as he looks back at the island, I drag my thin coat sleeves over my bitten fingernails to grip the railing, then lever myself over it as far as I dare, to scan the water.

‘Hey, be careful,’ Calder yelps, pulling me back.

‘I’m fine,’ I laugh. But where is that bloody bird? The poor thing must be dead by now. Though if it is, why hasn’t its frozen carcass bobbed up yet? I inhale the cold briny air as I stare down at the ever-changing pattern of fine lines on the surface of the water. Can it have swum down deep, right under the ferry? I turn and look back. No sign of it. Only the furrow of white frothing water the ferry is leaving behind in its wake, just as we’re leaving behind our old lives. And everyone in them.

Oh please, come back up, you stupid bird. This is surely a bad omen for our move.

But there’s no sign of it. It’s dead. Of course it is. Life is so fragile. If you don’t stay alert, hold on really tight, boom, it’s gone in an instant.

Suddenly the bird pops up right in front of me, shaking itself free of water, all jaunty and smug. Oh, thank God. It cocks its head and locks its beady eyes on me for a moment, regarding my relief with a withering look. Then it merrily bobs off on the undulating water. Everything’s fine.

My breath puffs out into the icy air as I return to watching the island coming into view. The mist has now curled around and re-formed behind us, erasing where we’ve come from. But the white coils up ahead have completely cleared, to present the island to us in all its glory. Before I met Calder, I’d heard of the Hebrides, Skye and Mull but always assumed that there were only about twenty or thirty islands dotted along the coast of Scotland. But I now know that there are over nine hundred. Ninety-five of them populated. Some with a few thousand people and some with less than a hundred, like this windswept beauty. It’s long and tapering, comprised of endless curves and planes of different angles and painted with every gradation of grey, green and brown imaginable. It looks like a dappled sleeping monster, half submerged in the grey sea and basking in the sun. To the right of the small bricked dock ahead is a slate beach, which hardly fits any category of ‘beach’ I’ve ever known or imagined. It’s an awesome expanse of glinting angles, endless jagged grey shards, as if this huge gunmetal sea all around us had risen up into the air, frozen, and then exploded all over the shore.

‘It’s amazing,’ I whisper.

Calder takes a sudden breath as he snaps out of his strange trance and looks down at me. ‘Excited?’

‘Totally,’ I laugh. ‘No mortgage, no boss, no commute. Just … all this.’ I gesture at the stunning rugged island. ‘What’s not to love.’

‘We’ll be our own bosses now, so I hope we’re easy to work with.’

‘Oh, I intend to be very lax indeed.’

He laughs. He’s starting his own loft extension company up here having been an employee in one for years. I’m swapping the hectic stress of being a BBC radio drama producer in London for the hassle-free simplicity of being an online film script editor. He’s asked me so many times if I’m sure about this move and I so am. More than he can possibly know.

The boat judders and goosebumps flare across me. I hadn’t realised quite how bizarre it would feel to be crossing a huge surging sea to get to our new home. Fantasising about moving to an island and actually moving to one are very different things. I’m only just now grasping that once these ferries stop running in the evenings, we’ll be totally marooned here. Which is exciting. As if we’re entering some magical guarded realm. I breathe deeply and the rush of cold air makes me dizzy. My giddiness is probably heightened by the fact that I haven’t slept for about twenty-four hours: including seven and a half hours not sleeping on the sleeper from London to Glasgow, three hours not sleeping on the local train from Glasgow to Oban, where we picked up our hire car, and half an hour not sleeping on the drive from Oban to the coast. And now we’re on the final leg, the fourteen-minute ferry ride to the island, and no one could possibly sleep in these arctic conditions. It was thrilling to get single tickets all the way. At first, I couldn’t find the option on the Trainline booking site, only returns, as if the site was saying: Single tickets to Scotland and not just to the mainland, to an isolated island, are you absolutely sure? I was. And I am. This is a completely fresh start with the only person who really matters to me any more.

‘Five pounds!’ comes a shout. It’s the burly man in the thick brown jumper who waved our car on. He’s approaching us with a black shoulder bag of money and holding a grey card-reader.

‘Of course,’ Calder says, pulling out a note from his overstuffed wallet.

‘Calder, isn’t it?’ the man asks.

‘Yes, that’s right. Hi Mr Mullins, I wasn’t sure if you’d recognised me.’

The man snorts. ‘Aye, course I did. I wouldn’t forget you, you gobshite.’

I tense, but Calder laughs.

‘And anyway, we’ve been warned to keep a look out for you. You’re the talk of the island, coming back to take over your mum’s place. Not many of our lost children come back here. Welcome home.’

They share a knowing nod.

‘Oh, and this is my girlfriend, Nancy.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ the man mumbles, then turns and his retreating footsteps clang on the metal steps.

‘Lost children?’ I ask, once the man’s out of earshot.

‘It’s nothing sinister. It’s just the dramatic way they talk here. Lots of the young people born on the island get bored by the time they’re teenagers and leave as soon as they can. But the islanders have to guilt-trip us by making it sound sad and suspicious.’

A blast of cold air buffets me and I shiver.

‘You OK?’ Calder asks.

‘Yes, just excited – and a bit cold.’

He pulls off his huge black coat and wraps it round me. ‘We need to get you a thicker jacket.’

‘But now you’ll be cold.’

‘Pah, I’m made of hardier stuff.’

‘Pah?’

‘Yeah, pah!’

I’ve only been here once before, on a flying overnight visit in the summer, to finally meet Calder’s formidable mum Isla. It had been endlessly sunny that day, warm with glorious clear blue skies, and I didn’t factor in how shockingly extreme the winter weather would be when we decided on this move. But this bracing cold is oddly exciting, underlining how new and different this life will be. When Isla had an unexpected heart attack two months ago, her will insisted on an unattended cremation, but she left Calder her cottage here. We were burnt out with our pressured London jobs, struggling with high rent and mounting bills, and wondering if there could ever be more to life than our relentless rat race. So, we made the snap decision – crazy decision, according to all our friends – to move to this sparsely populated, inaccessible island off the far western coast of Scotland, with a population of eighty-three, one pub and one shop.

‘I can’t wait to go out on the water again,’ Calder says, pointing at a small white-sailed boat that’s slicing through the water in the opposite direction to us. ‘I used to love sailing, but I haven’t been out since I was sixteen.’

Oh. I hadn’t factored in him going out in boats. Stupidly.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says, patting my shoulder. ‘Sailing’s just like driving for me.’

Since I don’t drive and lost both my parents in an awful car accident, that’s hardly reassuring, but I guess Calder is an excellent driver, so … time for one of my resolutions for this move. To stop my ridiculous over-worrying. I will be a new improved me here: calm and meditating, eating healthily while doing Couch to 5K running, and … baking bread, probably in a headscarf.

Calder looks down at me and strokes a fluttering strand of hair off my face. ‘Nancy, I …’

‘Yes?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nothing. I’m just getting that weird feeling you get when you return to where you grew up.’

‘I know what you mean.’ I move my hand along the rail and entwine my fingers with his.

He frowns. ‘Do you think there’ll really be enough of an appetite for my loft conversion business here?’

‘Totally. You said this place is all one-storey cottages. You’ll be a bloody fox in a henhouse.’ In London he was just a cog in a large glossy-brochured company. His best mate Hamish, who left the island with him, set up and was the smooth-talking, client-facing side of their loft extension company, gratingly named ‘Lofty Ambitions’. No, I mustn’t dwell on the past. Calder’s gruff honesty will work just fine here. His more prosaically named ‘Loft Rooms’ is going to do just great. I nibble at an annoying lump of hard skin down the side of my thumbnail. That’s the downside of love. Now Calder’s worries are my worries. Worse than mine. Whenever he’s stressed or hurt, I’m wounded and I’ll do anything to diffuse his worry or try to change what’s hurt him.

As we near the island, the little ferry overshoots the dock and slows, the engines straining, the boat juddering. What bad driving. Except … it’s on purpose, I realise, as the boat does an awkward little dance of turning and then backing up to the quay. I see that it’s actually a very skilled manoeuvre, requiring timing the engine thrusts with the distance to the shore and in relation to the speed and angle of the current. I was doing a similarly awkward little dance over my last few months in London, trying to keep my life together despite work pressure and rising anxiety. I bite the hard skin of my thumb again, then gnaw it right out of the nail bed. The stinging groove floods with blood.

There’s a loud clanking of chains and I look up to see the boat’s wide metal drawbridge being lowered. It scrapes onto the concrete as we clamber back into our car. The vehicles are waved off one at a time, and our car finally creeps forward and clunks over the metal lip of the bridge onto the concrete.

‘We made it,’ Calder announces. ‘Welcome to your new home.’

‘Hurrah!’ I shout, staring at everything greedily as we drive up the steep slope and round to the top of the beach. I touch Calder’s hand on the steering wheel. ‘Can we stop for a moment, so I can get a piece of slate?’

He laughs, turning off the engine. ‘Yeah, sure, it’s not as if it’s in short supply here, since all the mining’s moved to Wales.’

I get out, bow my head against the wind, and step onto the slates. They knock together with a strange, woody, Jenga block sound under my unsteady feet. I pick up a long shard. But it’s freezing and sharp in my numbed hand, so I throw it down and it bounces and rolls.

‘Are you trying to smash it?’ Calder calls as he gets out of the car.

‘No. This stuff looks unbreakable. No wonder they use it on roofs.’

‘Every piece has its weak point, however big and sturdy-looking,’ he says, pointing to the boulders at the curve of the bay. ‘That’s how they cut it, by making a little groove and tapping along it, till they find the fault line.’ He picks up my piece and throws it. This time it splits in half. ‘See.’

I reach down for the two pieces and fit them back together again. ‘Two halves of a whole. Like us.’

‘Ah. That’s a bit cute,’ he laughs. ‘But look, some bits have sheared off. Smashed slate can never be mended they say.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘They do,’ he says, lifting his hands like a ghoul. ‘Ooh.’

I laugh.

‘So, d’you want to explore the beach some more or shall we drive straight to the cottage?’

‘Let’s get to our new home.’

After ten minutes driving along glorious coastal views, we’re crunching down a stony track. Isla’s squat, white block of a cottage hunkers alone on a cliff edge, above an even more dramatic slate-strewn beach. It looks out on a stunning, shortbread-tin-lid bay, and has the majestic arch of a steep hill behind it. Calder fumbles with the keys, but finally unlocks the door and pushes. It creaks open, straight into the kitchen, which smells musty and feels even colder than outside. It’s hard to see much, as the small deep windows in the thick walls give so little light.

Suddenly, there’s an ungodly growling from the gloom.

‘What’s that?’ I yelp, backing out.

Calder picks up a chair and pokes it towards the sound.

There’s a creaking in the blackness.

A snarl.

And then a large black cat shoots past us and out the door.

‘Christ.’

‘It’s OK, it’s a good omen,’ Calder laughs. ‘Black cats protect fishermen at sea.’

I thought a black cat crossing your path was a bad thing?

He flips the switch for the overhead light.

We both gasp.

The room is like something in a horror film. Chairs are knocked over. The old gas cooker is caked in grease. And there’s debris, cobwebs and thick dust on every surface.

‘God, look at this place,’ I say, as I step in.

‘It’s OK, don’t panic. Just needs a good brush-up. We knew there’d be work to do after it being left empty for a while.’

‘Yeah, course,’ I say, trying to hide how appalled I am. ‘I guess we just need to gird our loins.’

‘Let’s get our bags out of the car and I’ll pop back to the village for cleaning stuff and supplies.’

‘Sure,’ I nod uncertainly.

‘Then more of these loins of which you speak,’ he grins.

I laugh and recalibrate my expectations for our first days here. I put my slouchy shoulder bag down on the kitchen table. Next to a dusty wooden box. ‘What’s this?’

Calder wipes the dust off the slate lid, narrows his eyes, then jolts back. ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘What?’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s Mum.’

‘What d’you mean?’ I say, peering over to read the engraving he’s uncovered.

ISLA CAMPBELL 1956–2022

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

‘It’s her actual ashes?’ I ask.

He’s frozen for a long moment, staring at the box.

‘Calder?’

‘Guess so.’

‘That’s a bit of a bleak quote. Who …’

He swipes the box up. ‘I’ll put it … her, away,’ he mumbles, shoving it into a low kitchen cupboard and slamming the slatted door.

‘There? Shouldn’t we find somewhere more meaningful?’

‘Once we’re settled,’ he snaps. ‘I’ll find a proper place for her then.’

I touch his arm but he shakes me free. ‘I’m fine, Nance. Let’s get unpacked. We’ve got lots to do.’

I glance at the slatted cupboard door as we unpack. I know it’s only Isla’s ashes in there. Literally dust. Yet although Calder’s busying himself lugging in our stuff, I can feel his inner bristling and sense his body turning imperceptibly away from her presence.

But of course, that was weird for him, discovering her like that. What sadist left her ashes there, for him to find? He’s just a bit wrong-footed. He’ll be all right. I need to get on with organising our new life. I stride towards the door, but trip over a dirty mud-scraper that’s bolted to the floor. God. I must watch out for that. It’s lethal. I walk out, shaking myself into action and out of my silly sense of foreboding. I’m just indulging in my usual habit of catastrophising.

Aren’t I?

CHAPTER TWO

Oh my God. I’m awed by the huge paperweight of blue sky in front of me, pressing down on the carpet of silvery sea below it. We’ve been stuck in the cottage cleaning for three days straight, so this morning Calder left at first light, eight-thirty-ish here, to have a ride around the bay in his mum’s small boat. Standing on the edge of the cliff, I scan the horizon for him. But all I see are these glorious slabs of colour, rubbing together and blending at the horizon.

It’s mesmeric, but the cold’s crawling into me, and I don’t like being so close to the triangular pile of slates on the edge of the cliff which mark the spot where Calder buried Isla’s ashes. I’m glad they’re out of the cottage, for Calder’s sake.

I go back to his mum’s – our – cottage, to the warmth of our new plug-in radiators, which Calder bought for us until we can get more oil canisters delivered for the heating. This room looks clean and sort-of-liveable now. And there’s a half-full gas canister to keep the cooker working till more supplies arrive. It’s so alien to me that all the energy here, except for the electric, is delivered. But I’ll adapt.

I glance at my open laptop. I’ve got enough files downloaded to be getting on with my work, which is just as well since there’s no internet here yet. And luckily, I have a dog-eared copy of the text I’m working on, lying splayed on the worn kitchen table. My first freelance job is editing a contemporary film script which is a modern re-imagining of Frankenstein. Yawn. Why does everything have to be re-imagined? This wonderful book was a metaphor about science having gone too far and a truly scary story to boot. But in this trite retelling, called No Firewall, mankind has gone too far with social media. A pretty tech genius called Victoria (a young, modern, female Dr Victor Frankenstein) has created an online version of herself, which has morphed into an out-of-control monster, wreaking havoc on her life and loved ones. I guess it’s a fair enough modern parallel, but this script is superficial and silly and in making the monster an internet being, it loses the horror and fascination of the re-animated body parts in the original. But hey, I’m getting paid shedloads to sleek up this tech-y confection, so, onwards. I open the novel to Chapter 3, where Dr Frankenstein’s mother is dying: I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world. Ugh. Who resigns themselves cheerfully to death?

I glance through the small kitchen window at the empty bay and feel a sudden whoosh of panic. Where is Calder? Is it safe for us to live in this isolated cottage? Am I up to this bottled-energy living? Will this quieter life really help me to get pregnant? And how will I cope with working alone at my computer day after day? What if I turn into a bleak barren lump chained to her laptop, while her attractive windswept husband roams the seas like a pirate?

Then I hear the crunch of footsteps and see Calder strolling over, flicking back his unruly black hair.

‘All right,’ he says breezily, as he comes through the door.

‘All good,’ I say, fake-typing industriously. Everything’s fine. I’m just catastrophising, as usual. Nothing is ever as bad as in my imagination.

‘Had a great motor round the bay,’ he says, as he bustles around the kitchen. He knocks open the bread bin and pulls out the heavy soda bread I made yesterday, trying to fulfil my resolution of cooking from scratch. But I found Isla’s oven hard to control and the bread’s rock-hard.

‘You don’t have to eat that,’ I laugh.

‘Oh, but I want to,’ he smirks, hacking off two massive wedges. ‘I’m man enough for the challenge.’ There’s a volley of tiny gunfire, as his mum’s gas grill sparks to life, then he opens the fridge-freezer. ‘This fridge’s massive, four times the size of our old one. And the freezer. My God. Without the shelves I could stand in it. See.’

‘Oh, my cooking’s a challenge, is it? Keep saying that and you will be in that freezer. Permanently.’

‘What I meant was. Your cooking is …’

I mock-glare.

‘A gastronomic delight!’

‘Hmm.’

When his toast’s done, he slathers it with big lumps of butter.

‘Hey. You’ll have a heart attack. Think of your dad. Put that back in our icy coffin,’ I laugh as I reach out for the butter, but he catches my hand.

‘Let go,’ I say, playfully.

He squelches my palm down, smothering it in butter.

‘I’ll just have to work the calories off, won’t I,’ he mumbles as he lifts my hand and licks the butter off my palm, smirking. ‘We need to christen this table,’ he laughs, as he lifts me onto it. I inhale him as he bends his shaggy head over to unbutton my dress down its front and runs his hands over me, while I pull up his shirt and grasp his flesh. We kiss deeply, then pull back to the faintest lip graze, before surging in again. My hip knocks over a half-drunk mug of tea and the caramel liquid slithers between the wooden grooves of the table, filling and obliterating every space.

When we’ve finished, we’re hazy and loose-limbed. He picks up his toast, which is now soggy with melted butter, and folds the entire piece into his mouth.

‘Look, you made the papers,’ I say, lifting a tea-stained copy of the local Langer Times, which he brought back from the local shop yesterday. ‘You’re the headline: LOST CHILDREN RETURN.’

Calder reaches for the paper, but I swipe it away. ‘Listen: “Langer has always suffered with an exodus of young people, which has decimated our numbers and broken our hearts.” Nice OTT prose there, I’d have my red pen out. But there’s more: “Now, not only are second homes being snapped up and full-time newcomers arriving, but some of our lost children,”’ – I point dramatically at him – ‘“who left us for the mainland as teenagers, lured by the bright lights and big city, are returning to settle here once more. As adults, they have come to appreciate our quiet beauty and sense of community. With Christmas approaching, we are especially thankful to open our arms and welcome back Martin Ferguson, Jean Connolly and” come on down “Calder Campbell”.’

‘Ah, what a lot of tosh, we all left for very different reasons,’ he says, glancing towards the sea.

‘Like what?’

He waves his hand dismissively. ‘Everyone had their demons.’

I seize. Why did he say that? He can’t possibly know about my demons.

Can he?

‘That’s a funny word to choose,’ I say lightly, tidying his plate into the sink so he can’t see my face.

‘You know what I mean. Teenagers are headstrong, full of hormones and secrets.’

‘Oh, so mysterious,’ I say, washing up to cover the rush of blood to my face. ‘And remind me, what was your reason?’

‘To find a sophisticated city-dwelling maiden to carry back for the yokels, of course.’

‘But all you got was little old me.’

‘Ah well, I’ll have to make do,’ he laughs, buttoning up his jeans and putting on a jacket. ‘I need to get on now, I’ve got three appointments for new lofts. Why don’t you go over to the “metropolis”, start meeting the locals? D’you want a lift?’

I smile at our silly name for the tiny village over the hill. ‘I’m fine, I’ll have a walk on the beach I think.’ I need to calm down alone, after our talk of ‘demons’.

‘Well, wrap up, lots of layers, remember you can get five weathers in one day here.’

We hear a mewing and frown at each other. Calder cautiously opens the front door. And there’s the black bruiser of a cat who freaked us out when we first arrived, sidling in as if it owns the place.

‘Come here, hun,’ I invite, brightly.

‘Go to Mum.’ Calder laughs as it rubs its head on his leg.

I grip the table. He doesn’t mean anything by that flippant label of ‘Mum’, but it pricks me after our two years of failing to get pregnant. But perhaps we’ve made a baby just now? A buttery ball of baby. I so want to make a family. My parents were kind, loving people, but were both killed instantly in a collision that concertinaed their car when I was fourteen. I was an only child, in foster care for four years afterwards, then a messed-up hard-living secretary who worked her way up to being a producer at the BBC, till I met Calder at the age of thirty-two, and he became my family and my place of safety.

‘All right, hun,’ I say, picking up the cat and trying to soften its rigidity with stroking. But it scratches me and leaps away.

‘More like Attila the Hun, though it’s a she,’ Calder says, pointing between its legs. She lets Calder pet her and I rub at the scratch down my neck. ‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine. You get on.’ I worry that the cat somehow intuits that I’m the outsider here and Calder is the true islander.

‘OK, I’m off,’ he says, picking up his bag and striding out. ‘Love you.’

‘Love you.’

I hear our rental car pulling away. Having always lived in London, I’ve never needed to drive, but I’ll have to bite the bullet here. There are no other cottages on our bay. We don’t have Wi-Fi yet. The landline’s out and there’s not even a decent mobile signal. I would be totally stranded here without Calder.

I walk through to the back bedroom, still finding it bizarre that everything’s on the ground floor in these one-storey cottages. As I pull on extra layers, I feel Calder’s recent touch on every part of me. Sex has always been intense for us, but also intuitive and easy. It gelled us instantly, despite our violent first meeting.

I was drinking too much that hot afternoon five years ago by Regent’s Canal back in London. Stepping onto a patch of vivid green grass, I was instantly submerged in water, thrashing, gulping, sinking. As I was blacking out, my arm was yanked, I was dragged upwards and my slimy carcass was dumped onto the bank, where I vomited water.

‘It’s not grass, you idiot, it’s algae,’ this tall man barked, as he turned away.

‘Hey,’ I coughed at his departing figure, ‘who are you?’

‘Calder,’ he grunted.

‘What?’

‘Calder. It’s Scottish. Means “wild water”.’

‘Like this?’ I coughed, gesturing to the canal.

He snorted. ‘That water’s not wild. You are.’

I grinned. ‘So, Calder, just how wild are you?’

We clicked in bed instantly, matched in our feral greed. We were the same age, but very different people – me small, highly educated and verbal; him tall, left school at sixteen and practical – but our instant sexual click bound us together for long enough for us to find a deeper connection. After the procession of self-obsessed actors and writers I’d dated before, feeling endlessly not good enough, going out with someone who adored me was … like landing on solid ground and being able to look around for the first time. I can’t ever imagine not being with him now. And five years on, I’m living with him in his mum’s cottage on this tiny isolated island, totally surrounded by truly wild water.

I catch my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. My geometric black bob is starting to grow out, brown sprouting at the side parting and the sheerness of the cut disintegrating daily. Good. I want to leave that severe black-haired me behind. No. I won’t dwell on the past. New place, new me. I need to get out of here and appreciate that truly wild water out there. As daylight only lasts from eight-thirtyish till four here in late November, I better hop to it. I pull on my boots, my coat and my shocking-pink woolly hat, which looked edgy in London, but seems touristy here.

I feel better as soon as I’m off. Out under this massive blue sky. Moving. Crunching along the path. Air filling my lungs. As I step out onto the slates on the beach, I’m a newborn calf, tottering and unsteady, then slipping and throwing my hands out onto slimy green rocks for support. All my jittery focus is on staying upright. I snort as I remember paying £135 back in London for a curve-based balance board. This jagged assault course is way better. The lighter dry slates are manageable, but the dark, glossy wet ones are treacherous, especially those spray-painted with lurid green seaweed.

‘Hey,’ a voice calls out suddenly.

I jerk my head up, to see a dark shimmering shape in the distance. As I shade my eyes and peer directly at the sun, I make out a tall spectral figure in long grey ceremonial robes. It moves eerily fast across the slates. As if propelled. But as it gets closer, I see that it’s really a tall thin bloke in a long grey raincoat, with a bald head, strong features and piercing blue eyes. He’s got to be well over six foot, in his fifties maybe, with an intense energy, like an ageing basketball player who still stays fit. I look around. Is this safe? I’m totally alone here. He’s staring at me intently, extending his hand. I can’t run away on these slates, so I plaster on a tight smile as I reach out my hand. But as I step forward, I slip. His hand shoots out and catches me in a firm, steadying grip.

‘Careful, these slates can be very slippery,’ he says in a deep voice.

‘Thanks,’ I say, extricating myself from his sweaty grasp.

He gestures backwards. ‘I knocked at your cottage, but there was no reply, then I saw you down here on the beach.’

‘Can I … help you with something?’

‘More the other way around.’ He grins, as if I should understand.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, Mrs Campbell.’

He knows who I am? Was he also warned to look out for us, like the man on the ferry? Calder and I aren’t actually married, but I don’t clarify for this disconcertingly charismatic stranger.

‘I’m Arran,’ he says, extending his hand again and forcing me into shaking it boisterously.

‘Like the jumper?’ I blurt.

‘Like the jumper, but with an extra R,’ he grins, flashing his intense blue eyes. ‘It means “island dweller”. I’m proud of the name. I love this island and its community. And you, Nancy, are its newest, very lovely addition.’

OK, this guy’s a bit weird, I need to get away. ‘Well, nice to meet you, but I better get on.’

‘I’m the pastor of the church here.’

Oh. I’m so not religious but I know that Calder’s parents were, his dad a church elder, his mum cleaning the church and doing the flowers, so I need to be polite.

‘Of course. I’ve heard about your famous church.’

He smiles, making too much eye contact.

‘I gather you have a slate altar,’ I falter on. ‘I read about it in a guidebook?’

He stares at me. I blink back, unnerved by him but unable to break the connection.

‘Indeed we do,’ he says eventually. ‘A notable tourist attraction. But I was hoping that you and Calder might come to an actual service. We’re all very excited that he’s returned to us.’

What is this weird sense of ownership they all seem to have of Calder?

‘Oh, yes, well, I’ll certainly suggest it to him.’ I can’t see us attending church. Or do we have to get involved on such a small island?

I register him clocking my reticence.

‘Calder’s mother Isla was very committed to the church,’ he says. ‘It was a great sadness to her that he dismissed it as a youth.’

I balk at his implied criticism of Calder. ‘Was it you who left her ashes in the middle of our table?’

He inhales sharply. ‘It was what Isla wanted. To return to her cottage.’

‘But didn’t you think it would be upsetting for Calder to just find her there? No warning.’

He frowns. ‘Oh dear, I wasn’t thinking. Is Calder all right?’ he says, touching my arm.

‘He’s fine.’ I shift a step back, but my foot slides on some seaweed and he catches me again.

‘Be careful.’ He grips my arm firmly and pulls me up and into him. ‘Will he be about later? I should apologise for leaving Isla’s ashes like that. It was thoughtless.’

‘I’ll tell him you called,’ I say, taking a deliberate step away.

He bends down and picks up a piece of the moss-covered slate, holding it out to me. ‘Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh.’

‘I’m sorry?’

He wipes the moss off the slate as he stands. ‘Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work. Then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.’

‘Err. I don’t—’

He grins. ‘Psalm 19 verse 13. It’s a modern version, but I’m a sucker for the slate imagery.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Have you ever wished for the chance to wipe the slate clean, Nancy?’ he says, barely blinking.

‘I—’ Can he see directly into my thoughts? I turn away abruptly and look up at the cliff behind our cottage to hide my eyes, which are filling with tears.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Just admiring that sheep on the hill,’ I choke out, pointing towards a tufty animal balanced on the almost sheer hillside, looking very precarious. ‘It’s amazing they never fall.’

‘Oh, sheep do fall from up there. More often than you think.’

His portentousness is really grating on me. ‘Come on, that’s just some biblical metaphor, isn’t it?’

‘No, they do actually fall. And die.’

I swing back to him. ‘What, so “sure-footed sheep” is just some meaningless phrase?’ I say, glaring at him. Can’t he just stop all this ominous posturing and go away.

He smiles at me for a long moment. ‘When I sprained my ankle last year,’ he says eventually, ‘all I noticed were people walking around easily with healthy ankles. We see the meanings around us which fit in with our concerns. You seem especially perturbed by that fallen sheep metaphor?’

‘Oh, I’m a sheep now, am I?’

‘We are all God’s flock. My title pastor derives from the Latin noun meaning “shepherd”, itself derived from the verb pascere, “to lead to pasture”. If you need any help being led—’

‘I don’t,’ I snap.

He shrugs. ‘Well, I’d best get on. Do tell Calder I called. And I look forward to seeing you both at church.’ He walks away, effortless on the precarious slates.

Damn it. What a total disaster that was for my first solo islander interaction. I’m bristling with annoyance but regretting shooting my mouth off. He wasn’t meaning anything with his religious rambling. It was just an unlucky coincidence him talking about clean slates, and I assumed he could somehow read my thoughts. It’s like what happens with horoscopes: I read my own star sign and the message resonates; yet if I read any of the others, they resonate too.

But he was uncannily accurate.

I am a fallen sheep.

Three months ago, I had a drunken one-night stand when Calder was away on a job. My chest falls in with self-disgust at the memory. I know it happened, but I still can’t believe it did. However drunk I was, how could I? What pathetic black thoughtlessness possessed me. I close my eyes, wanting to turn myself inside out to escape being me. I’ve tried to ‘be kind’ to myself. To tell myself what I would say to a friend in this much agony: It was a terrible one-off mistake, made when you were extremely drunk and despairing; everyone makes mistakes; you need to forgive yourself; try to move on with your life. I’m always giving that kind of advice to others. But now I know it merely feels good to give, but so useless to receive. I deserve to suffer. I cheated on the love of my life.

Afterwards, my anxiety spiralled, my work suffered and I was at breaking point when I jumped at the chance of this move. I couldn’t lose Calder, my safe harbour. If I’d told him, I would have compounded my sin by destroying him and then us. But now he doesn’t fully know me. Well, I just have to tough it out. After my parents’ mangled bodies were pulled from the wreckage of that awful accident, I learnt to dim the white noise of anxiety in my head, push down thoughts I couldn’t face, and focus on the next thing I had to do, in the here and now. That’s all I can do now. Keep embracing this new life here, and hope that it will become a habit and I can somehow move on.

OK, onwards. There’s only one shop here, one pub and a load of boat stuff.

Shouldn’t drink. Hate boats. Food shop it is.

The shop is on the other side of the island in the ‘metropolis’, reachable by following the coastal road round in either direction. But there’s a way quicker route up over the hills, which I walked with Calder during our previous visit. It’s such a sunny, calm day, and the climb will get me out of my head.

So, I leave the beach, skirt our cottage and start up the hill. I make my way up the shallow brush land, to the narrow track, barely five inches across, which hugs the hill. If it were chalked out on flat ground, I could run along it with abandon, but the drop makes it vertiginous. Calder advised me last time. ‘Don’t focus down, look across and lean into the hill.’ So now I virtually lie on the hill as I inch across, pigeon step by pigeon step, and finally, I reach the rocky outcrop and the small climb upwards. At the top, my ragged breathing slows, and I take in the stunning views: the churning Atlantic, the rough rolling grassland, and the hazy green, brown and lilac hills.

This cliff-edge area, with its sheer drop to the sea, must surely be the highest point on the island. The ground is uneven and boggy and I have to step back from one of the crumbly fissures Calder showed me, which had opened up during the hot summer. I feel like I’m on top of the world here. The vibrant blue sky with its streaks of cloud is so vast. In London, I barely registered that such a thing as ‘sky’ existed, beyond being a space between buildings, as conceptual as the blue swipe in a child’s painting. Here, skies dominate. A shaft of light suddenly breaks through the clouds, lighting up the hill, and I am consumed by an oddly religious sensation. Ha. Arran would be pleased. I’m in a natural cathedral, at some strange nexus point between man and the heavens. Perhaps I can finally forgive myself here.

The shaft of light is suddenly extinguished, and thick clouds start to descend quickly. I have to lean forward and brace my legs against the incredible force of wind. What fills the sky now isn’t the gossamer streaks of earlier, but a crushing wodge of greys and purples, lowering like an alien spaceship and blocking out the light. The wind’s an invisible battering ram, charging, then pushing me sideways. This weather could kill me. Easily. I must hurry.

Icy rain is driving straight at me as I make my way down the wider path on the other side of the hill. I place my feet carefully as I descend. I’m sure that Arran was lying about sheep falling from up here, but I can’t stop imagining being one now, bleating as I plummet.

I see the ferry just pulling out below me. It connects not to the mainland, but to the larger more populated island next door, which is connected to the mainland by a single bridge. Apparently, there was much debate when the bridge was suggested. Not joyous support for it as I would have expected, but vehement arguments against it. The locals protested that ‘it would destroy our island status’, ‘anyone could come over’ and ‘no one will know where the children are’. After all that talk about ‘lost children’, I wonder whether the islanders were really trying to trap their children here.

I finally reach the ‘metropolis’, which looks like a toy town from a children’s book. There are two long rows of squat white cottages on either side of the single road running between them. At the end of one row is the pub, constructed out of two of the white cottages, with the addition of a rickety annex at the back. Many of the buildings here are constructed out of these squat white cottages: the pub, the local shop and the boat office. I feel like a rat in an experiment, being watched to see which white cube I’ll scurry into next. Only Arran’s prim church seems to be purpose-built, small, formal and decorated, of course, with grey slate. I thought it would be Church of Scotland, but it’s some sort of home-grown Christianity, quite old school from what Calder tells me. Even more not our thing. The church perches on a small hill which overlooks the road in, so its censorious cross casts its chilly shadow across me as I pass. I don’t believe, yet I still feel judged. I guess that’s why people go to church: to repent and move on. Some people live with so much worse than I’ve done, with ongoing affairs, crime, violence, even with murder. Yet they watch TV, go to the shops, kiss their loved one and manage not to implode. How do they do it?

Icy pricks of rain needle my cheeks. I haven’t used the expensive heavy moisturiser that Hamish’s wife Gina gave me as a farewell gift, and I’m raw and smarting by the time I reach Janey’s Shop. I love that that’s the actual name, painted in capitals on a board outside. Calder says we’ll do our big shops on the mainland, but this post office slash grocers is for immediate needs. He said that Royal Mail tried to take away its licence because of the tiny population, but this Janey whipped up a local campaign and kept it open.

The doorbell jangles as I enter the stuffed shop. I see a tall, rangy woman with long grey hair and direct brown eyes, dressed in army trousers and a tie-dyed top with a yin–yang fish symbol. She’s surrounded by sweets, gum, fishing accessories, scratch cards and cigarettes.

Right, I’ll try harder with this second islander. I can’t afford to fall out with anyone else in this small population.

‘Morning, Nancy,’ she says, as I enter. ‘Sorry, small-town knowledge – you’re Calder’s wife aren’t you? We’re all so pleased that he’s back. What can I do you for?’

I don’t correct her about the wife thing. ‘Janey?’

She nods. ‘Aye.’

‘Hi. I’m just browsing,’ I say over-brightly.

She purses her lips theatrically and then gives me a huge grin. I burst out laughing. Obviously, no one ‘browses’ in this shop. ‘Browsing’ is so London.

‘Browse away,’ Janey says.

Suddenly there’s an enormous crash from the room behind her. But Janey doesn’t flinch.

‘Everything … OK back there?’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘Umm, didn’t you hear that?’

The door behind her opens, and a small balding man with warm twinkly eyes looks out, grinning.

‘Just knocked over the—’ He sees me. ‘Oops, sorry,’ he mumbles, then grimaces at Janey and turns away. I notice that he’s got a tattooed capital C on the back of his neck.

‘Should I go?’ I whisper.

‘No, no, it’s just my friend Rob. He was fixing my plumbing.’

I smile and she goes bright red.

‘I mean actually fixing the plumbing. Well …’

I smile. ‘I’ll go.’

‘No, no, just give me a moment.’

She moves back. Through the half-open door, I see her embrace him and then he leans down, gently kisses her on the lips and caresses her cheek. It’s such a tender private moment between two people who are clearly in love, that I feel bad for staring and move to the rear of the shop. Then I hear a door closing and she returns. ‘Have a wee cup of tea with me. I need one.’

‘If you’re sure?’

‘Come on back.’

‘But the shop—’

‘I’d like to see someone try to steal from me.’

I walk through to a low square room, with a fire going in the grate and a worn L-shaped settee facing it, covered in brightly coloured throws and cushions.

‘Take those boots and wet trousers off and wrap that blanket round you,’ she orders. She puts my wet clothes in the dryer as I snuggle into her comfy sofa. I like her already. She radiates warmth. Perhaps I can unthaw in her glow.

‘I know this seems an odd thing to ask,’ she says as she returns with mugs of tea, ‘but is it OK if you don’t mention Rob to anyone? It’s a “delicate” situation.’

‘Okaay?’

‘He was, well technically he still is, married to Alison, a woman who lives on the island.’ I swallow. Arran was right – I see my guilt everywhere. ‘He’s separated, but when you’ve got a bairn, you’re never really separated, are you?’

I shrug non-committally. But she’s right. As I know only too well.

‘They had a particularly nasty split, all sorts of unpleasant lies and rumours. He’s a great bloke, but I don’t want to cause more trouble so we keep things on the down-low.’

‘Don’t people see him around on the island? It’s not very big.’

‘We usually meet on the mainland, but very occasionally he comes over in his boat after dark and leaves at first light. He slept in this morning. Please don’t even tell Calder. Or is that tricky?’

‘No problem.’ I never thought I’d have any secrets from Calder. But what’s one more?

‘So,’ she says, shaking out her lovely grey hair, ‘are you getting settled in all right up there?’

‘Getting there, cleaning and mending. We’ve even got a cat, I think. A big black thing.’

‘It’s probably from that feral litter Isla was feeding year before last. She found them being nursed on an old rucksack in her shed. I’m surprised, feral cats rarely trust anyone.’

‘She seemed to trust Calder instantly.’

She nods, as if to say Of course! He’s an islander. ‘Have you named her?’

‘Attila.’

She inclines her head. ‘Interesting for a female.’

‘I called her “hun”, then she scratched me, so Calder said “more like Attila the Hun”.’

She laughs. ‘Well she’s a tough cat to have survived up there, so it’s a good name. Attila was a fierce man, only lost one battle. Though he did die mysteriously.’

‘Oh?’

‘Aye, took a second wife and was found dead on the morning after his wedding, his mouth full of blood. No one knows what killed him: drinking too much, a freak nosebleed – or perhaps his new wife?’

We sip our tea.

‘So have you met many of the locals yet?’ she says eventually.

‘Just one. And I think I rather made a mess of things when I ran into the local pastor earlier.’

‘Arran?’

‘Umm, I was kind of abrupt and I think I offended him.’

‘Oh, Arran’s all about forgiveness. For some, anyway.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He means well, but he’s quite a control freak. Thinks he knows what’s best for everyone.’

‘He’s pretty intense. But I want to fit in. Get to know as many people as I can.’

‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you to Rob. I know that was awkward. But his ex, Alison, said she’d kill him if he set foot here again. Also, I thought it might be awkward, what with him being Caitlin’s dad and all.’

‘Calder’s old girlfriend, Caitlin? Oh yes, he mentioned her. Said she left the island just before him.’

‘Umm. Same year as Calder and another boy called Hamish.’

‘Oh, I know Hamish. He and Calder set up a loft company together in London.’

‘Yes, we heard about that.’

‘So, all three of them were some of those “lost children” from the papers?’

‘I guess. Rob took it really badly when Caitlin left. He moved to London to look for her. But she broke all contact with everyone, including her parents – only ever sends one postcard a year to Alison, on the anniversary of her leaving. It’s the only time Rob and Alison speak. It upsets him every time.’

‘Is that why he has that C on his neck?’

‘Umm.’ She gives me a small smile then looks down as if drawing a line under the subject. How strange to try to remember your own child by getting a tattoo on your spine, one of the most painful places to have one done? But I don’t feel I can ask more.

‘Anyway, how are you two doing?’ she asks brightly, sipping her tea.

‘Oh, Calder’s taken the move in his stride. I’m … getting there.’

‘Calder’s an islander. You—’

‘I know. I’m an outsider.’

‘Don’t be a daftie. You’re Calder’s wife.’

I nod, still annoyed by her assumption that we’re married, but I don’t want to appear too ‘alternative’ on this traditional island.

‘Are you planning on having children?’

Now I look down.

‘I’m so sorry, that was rude of me. None of my business.’

I smile weakly and wave away her embarrassment. ‘We can’t get pregnant,’ I mumble.

Janey puts down her tea and pats my hand. ‘You’re just not pregnant – yet,’ she says pointedly.

She’s so warm, so intuitive, so nice. It’s making the full truth slide up my throat. But I mustn’t say it.

‘I could help you,’ she says gently. ‘I’m a homeopath.’

Oh no, not that hocus-pocus.

‘It’s not hocus-pocus,’ she smiles. God, is everyone here psychic? ‘Well, not until the advanced sessions by moonlight, when we bathe in the blood of virgins. Oh my God, your face. I doubt there are many virgins on this island. It’s freezing, the Wi-Fi’s shit and we have to make our own entertainment.’

I laugh.

She touches my hand. ‘You feel … cold.’

I knew it was hocus-pocus. I’m sweating in front of her fire, under her blanket.

‘I’ll give you some ginger tea to warm you up. Don’t worry.’

‘Oh, I’m a total worrier. I’m hoping to relax more here. Though as soon as Calder went out in his mum’s boat, I was instantly catastrophising.’

‘Well, of course.’

‘Why “of course”?’

She frowns. ‘Because of his father.’

‘Douglas?’

She blinks, clearly registering that I have no idea what she’s talking about.

‘It means “black water”,’ she says, looking out towards the sea.

‘What does?’

‘Douglas. It’s from the Gaelic dubh meaning “black”, and glas meaning “water”.’

‘Oh, so water names are a family thing then? ’Cos I know Calder means “wild water”.’

‘Yes, that’s right. But with you worrying about Calder out in Isla’s boat, I thought you meant … because of what happened.’

‘Why? What did happen?’

‘Douglas drowned.’